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The NBA discontinued the Comeback Player of the Year Award more than 30 years ago, but if they brought it back for 2017-2018, the Grizzlies’ media relations office might be busy with multiple campaigns.

This Grizzlies roster has two stars, two or three mid-career vets with sure rotation spots, and a whole bunch of under-25s who haven’t proven anything. In the middle of it all are four talented veterans likely projected into important roles, all of whom come into the season with significant recent injury-related questions.

Chandler Parsons, Brandan Wright, Tyreke Evans, and Mario Chalmers combined for only 102 games last season, and even that might undersell the extent of their collective health concerns: Evans was limited to 40 games last season, but only played 25 the season before while dealing with knee problems. Wright has played a total of 40 games for the Grizzlies since joining the team in the summer of 2015, and has only hit the 70-game plateau once in a nine-year career. And, of course, Parsons has had three consecutive seasons interrupted by knee injuries.

Assuming Mike Conley and Marc Gasol have relatively complete seasons, the Grizzlies’ hope for an eighth straight playoff berth may depend heavily on the health and effectiveness of this high-risk quartet.

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Memphis Grizzlies Chandler Parsons signals to a teammate during the game against the Atlanta Hawks at FedExForum on March 10, 2017.(Photo: Nikki Boertman, The Commercial Appeal)

Parsons’ Progress

From my perch to the left of the visitor’s bench, I feared the opening seconds of the Grizzlies’ first preseason game would be a moment of ignominy. The tip was batted back toward the opposite sideline and instead of letting it land in the seats, Chandler Parsons sprinted after it and then stopped hard at the line to keep himself in-bounds, reaching to pull the ball back across. Having chatted about Parsons’ physical prognosis just moments before, a visiting scout and I both gasped.

Thankfully, this comeback did not end as it was beginning.

The early returns on Parsons this preseason have been decidedly mixed. In two games so far, across 36 minutes, Parsons' stat line is 11 points (5-12 shooting, 0-4 from three), 6 rebounds, and 5 assists. Parsons is moving better than he did at any point last season, and in his first appearance conditioning was a more obvious issue than physical limitation. He was huffing and puffing about three minutes in. This, at least, is a more correctable concern.

But after an albatross of a season in which Parsons was never truly playable, expectations have changed. Success this season, at least initially, won’t be measured against the standard of a $95 million contract or a once-projected place just beneath Conley and Gasol in the team’s pecking order. Instead, start with this: Can he help?

Last season, Vince Carter turned 40 years old. He shot worse than 40 percent from the floor. His PER was a middling 11.69 (15 is league average). And yet Carter had the second-best net rating (team performance per possession when a player is on the floor) on the roster. When you look at the Grizzlies’ most effective lineups last season, Carter was often the common denominator.

Why?

I’d say it was because he provided some small measure of long-range shooting, playmaking, and hoops IQ on the wing for a team that, in its main lineups, was generally solid elsewhere. Wing offense was a team tipping point. The Grizzlies knew that on the front end, and signing Parsons was a response. The extent that Carter’s fairly average play impacted team performance suggests how even more impactful a theoretical Parsons might have been.

Memphis Grizzlies' Chandler Parsons (middle) stretches his leg during player introduction before taking on the Orlando Magic at the FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn., Monday, October 2, 2017. Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal

Memphis Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale smiles at an officials call during action against the Orlando Magic at the FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn., Monday, October 2, 2017. Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal

Memphis Grizzlies fans attempt a shot during a break in action against the Orlando Magic during first quarter action at the FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn., Monday, October 2, 2017. Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal

Theory never materialized into practice, of course. Parsons was one of the least-effective shooters in the entire NBA. (Among players with more than 200 attempts, only teammate Andrew Harrison shot worse from the floor than Parsons’ 34 percent.) Parsons’ poor shooting and lack of health made him understandably tentative. Rather than a positive contributor as a playmaker, his presence on the floor gummed up everything. The Hubie Brown axiom about knowing when to pass and when to shoot couldn’t apply when Parsons was on the floor. It became a farce. And so Parsons was the anti-Carter, a common denominator in the team’s least-effective lineups, with the worst net rating on the roster among veteran players.

But Carter’s effectiveness, as a kind of proxy for what a healthy Parsons might have been, is still suggestive. And perhaps that’s a good baseline for Parsons this season: Never mind his own prior best self, now likely rendered a mirage. Can he be this season what Carter was last season?

Physically, Parsons hasn’t looked good but has perhaps looked good enough. He’s handling and passing with more comfort and confidence. He’s making cuts and finishing plays at the rim. He’s been something more than a matador defensively. But his shots are still short. After establishing himself as a 37-to-41 percent threat from three over his prior four seasons, an injured Parsons hit at only a 27 percent clip last season. Carter was 38 percent on more than 4 attempts a game.

Given the presumed certainty of some level of physical limitation even in the best of times, Parsons needs to be a viable three-point threat to be playable and a plus one to truly be helpful. Will the shot come?

Parsons’ alleged minutes restriction last season was really a minutes mandate. The team ran him out for about 19 minutes a night in the hope that he would come around and did so until those hopes were fully extinguished. Even if Parsons is healthy and effective enough to help this season, I’d expect a real restriction, even if it goes unstated.

Given these various realities, how should Parsons be used? JaMychal Green’s switchable, versatile defense at power forward probably helps Parsons’ case to return to the starting lineup. On some nights, Green could defend the other team’s best scoring forward whether a “three” or “four.”

But Parsons’ best position at this stage of his career might be as a play-making, hopefully floor-stretching power forward. And given the lack of proven depth behind Green at the four, those minutes might be the best for Parsons. The Grizzlies could find Parsons 15-20 minutes a night playing power forward against bench-heavy lineups. Until he proves otherwise, this might be his highest and best use.

Those minutes could still come over the course of a game even if Parsons starts, but there’s a real case for the team to take what would be a public relations hit in some quarters and consider starting James Ennis at small forward and bringing Parsons off the bench in a kind of combo forward role.

Maximizing Brandan Wright

Parsons as a play-making, three-point shooting power forward might also be a good fit, at least offensively, in bench lineups with Brandan Wright, who is historically at his best when surrounded by three-point shooters and given lots of space as a pick-and-roll diver. (Defensively and especially on the boards a Parsons/Wright frontcourt combo would be, um, well ...)

After a somewhat celebrated free agent signing in the summer of 2015, Wright has just never gotten on track for the Grizzlies, playing only 40 games in two seasons. Most of the problem has been injury, but even when healthy, Wright has found himself fourth in the big-man pecking order on a team with middling shooting. If Wright’s body will cooperate, this final season of his current contract with the Grizzlies should set him up for more success.

With Zach Randolph’s departure, Wright moves up the depth chart as the team’s primary reserve big man. And assuming the Grizzlies avoid pairing him with Deyonta Davis, Wright is likely to spend most of his time in lineups with four three-point threats.

When Wright's played, he’s been himself, if a slightly worse version: A high-level inside finisher and helpful rim protector who can’t really make plays with the ball and can get outmuscled in the paint.

In many ways, Wright is the anti-Randolph. Randolph was glued to the floor; Wright soars above the rim. Randolph was a great rebounder; Wright is a subpar one. Randolph liked to work in isolation, jab-stepping his defender; Wright is a finisher who needs to be set up. And, most of all: Randolph was high usage, low efficiency; Wright is low usage, high efficiency.

Last season:

Zach Randolph: 27.7 usage/49% true shooting percentage

Brandan Wright: 15.4 usage/63% true shooting percentage

Which side of this contrast is preferable is up for debate, though the answer is probably dependent on the players that will be surrounding Wright.

Last season, Randolph helped a bench devoid of shot creators, but his balance of usage and efficiency was way out of whack. Among “qualified” players via ESPN (those meeting a certain playing time threshold), Randolph was 19th in the NBA in usage rate (the percentage of possessions a player “uses” via shot attempts, turnovers, etc) with a near career-low true shooting percentage. To find a player on the usage ranking list with a worse shooting performance, you’d have to go all the way down to #65, for Denver guard Emmanuel Mudiay. Randolph got buckets, but very inefficiently.

Historically a dynamic finisher, Wright has been one of the most efficient scorers in the NBA during his career. He just doesn’t do it as much. And he’s not someone you can give the ball to when you need to get a shot. Whether Wright’s radically different style as a third big man works better for the Grizzlies this season depends partly on whether he can stay healthy (Randolph gave the Grizzlies 73 games) but also on where that extra usage shifts and how well it’s used. The next two players in this column may well determine much of this.

As for Wright’s role, he’s a center in the current NBA and will operate primarily as Marc Gasol’s backup. But Gasol is going to average more than 30 minutes a game and Deyonta Davis is also essentially a center, and one the team wants to work into the mix.

Wright has never played heavy minutes, with 19.3 as a career high for a season. But on most nights it’ll be hard to top 15 minutes playing strictly behind Gasol. It will be interesting to see if the Grizzlies try to carve out some more time for Wright by using him and Gasol together. With Gasol sitting for the first two preseason games, the team hasn't had a chance to give this combo any run yet this season.

With his three-point shooting and deft work from the elbow, Gasol can now function much as Dirk Nowitzki did when sometimes paired with Wright in Dallas.

Last season, the Grizzlies were +13.1 points per 100 possessions with Wright and Gasol together, despite being out-rebounded. It was only 91 minutes, but that’s enough of a sample to encourage further testing.

For the moment, at least, Wright is healthy and the team’s roster seems better equipped to use him than before. He’s looked good in preseason so far, and his potential impact looms as an under-the-radar intrigue.

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Tyreke Evans poses for a picture during the Grizzlies' media day Sept. 25, 2017, at FedExForum.(Photo: Brad Vest / The Commercial Appeal)

Tyreke’s Role

As the usage contrast in the previous section illustrates, Brandan Wright may be replacing Zach Randolph as the team’s third big, but Randolph’s replacement as sixth man/primary bench creator will need to come from elsewhere. Enter Tyreke Evans.

While Wright couldn't be more different from Randolph, Evans is something like a perimeter Z-Bo: He’s also high usage/middling efficiency (26 usage/51 true shooting in his last full season). He’s also a mostly floor-bound player who uses strength, size, and craft to create space and finish in the lane. And he plays with personality and has a connection to Memphis that extends beyond the basketball court.

Due to migraines last week, we haven’t had a chance to see Evans in action yet, but reports from training camp have been very positive. And while Evans has missed a lot of time with knee injuries the past two seasons, he’s still been pretty productive when he’s played.

Evans can play multiple positions and fill multiple roles. If he’s not quite the freight train he was earlier in his career, he seems to have offset that with improved shooting, hitting 37 percent from three-point range (on more than 200 attempts) over the past couple of seasons. He’d made only 28 percent from long-range on more than 800 attempts previously, and normally you’d bet on the larger sample. But Evans’ shooting improvement over the past couple of seasons seems to be connected to an adjustment in his shooting mechanics that’s resulted in a smoother, more conventional stroke.

What should Evans’ role be? On Media Day, David Fizdale implied a kind of open competition for the starting scoring guard spot. I doubt it’s that simple. There’s a question of how lineup combinations and roles best serve a team over the course of 48 minutes. Most people, myself included, have assumed that Evans’ best fit for the Grizzlies would be as sixth man, operating as a primary scorer on second units and playing alongside Mike Conley in spots.

I still think that’s probably right, but I wonder if the question of Evans’ role should be considered in concert with Parsons. As noted in the Parsons section, the Grizzlies were at their best with a secondary playmaker and scoring threat on the wing. Parsons is supposed to be that. But if Parsons comes off the bench with the more ball-limited James Ennis in the starting lineup, then maybe Evans’ offense would serve the team better as a starter. My guess is Evans is the team’s top reserve this season, but there might be a case for starting him. Either way, I think there’s a good chance he’s the team’s third-leading scorer.

Rio’s Return?

Mario Chalmers also had a show-and-prove moment early in the first preseason game.

He was beyond the three-point line when a kick-out pass came his way. He stepped into the catch, stopped, and cut hard to his left to avoid a closing defender and get into open space. Coming off a torn Achilles, this isn’t the kind of move you make if you’re limited. Chalmers looked totally fine and preceded to pick up where he’d left off when last seen in Beale Street Blue in the spring of 2016: Knocking down threes, getting into the lane for nifty little floaters, drawing fouls.

Everyone’s excited about the return of Rio. Fans have wondered if Chalmers, after missing an entire season with the Achilles injury, could possibly return to the form he showed in his one partial season for the Grizzlies. But the injury wasn’t -- scratch that, isn’t -- Chalmers’ only hurdle to a repeat: So was gravity.

Last week, this column noted that Mike Conley met the criteria for John Hollinger’s “Fluke Rule,” meant to suggest veteran players likely to decline after a leap forward. Conley’s improvement could be explained by a change in role and style of play.

Chalmers’ 2015-2016 season was an even more clear-cut “Fluke Rule” season, his 17.3 PER a sizable increase over not only his previous season but his previous career high. Statistically, Chalmers had never been as productive as in that one half season and change for the Grizzlies. Was there any reason, even before Chalmers’ injury, to expect a repeat?

Maybe this was a fluke, but maybe there are also environmental explanations for Chalmers as there were for Conley. While Chalmers scored and got to the line at a higher rate than ever before, his three-point shooting actually slumped (33 percent for the Grizzlies, compared to 36 percent on his career). Chalmers’ prime had been spent playing with Lebron James and Dwyane Wade on title teams in Miami. Perhaps the change of scenery gave him more freedom to create but yielded fewer wide-open spot-up looks?

Whether a fully healthy Chalmers’ can repeat his previous Grizzlies performance is up for debate, so much so that I’d wouldn’t consider his place on the 15-man roster a certainty. But as healthy and physically undiminished as Chalmers has looked, I would consider it likely. And if this continues, he may be something more than Mike Conley’s caddy. Two seasons ago, the Grizzlies were lights-out in 200 minutes with Conley and Chalmers sharing a backcourt. That seems like an area that warrants further exploration.